KLM, Delta, Air France: End the alliance with anti-gay Aeroflot

After Aeroflot employee Maxim Kupreev tried to organize the company’s first LGBT group for employees, the Russian airline told Maxim that he would lose his job unless he entered into a heterosexual marriage. As a result, Maxim was reportedly required to marry a female friend, forcing her to dissolve her own marriage so that Maxim wouldn’t lose his job.

As Russia’s principal airline, Aeroflot is a member of Sky Team, a global alliance of airlines that includes some of the biggest airline companies in the world, including KLM, Delta, and Air France. Activists are now calling on Sky Team and its members to condemn the actions of Aeroflot, and to remove Aeroflot from the alliance unless it apologizes for what it did to Maxim, and allows to register an LGBT group for employees. Russian activists have planned to hold a demonstration in February to protest Aeroflot’s actions, but they have been told by Russian authorities that their public protest has been banned -- yet another example of LGBT people being marginalized in Russia.

As a regular customer of Sky Team group, I demand to remove Aeroflot from the alliance unless it apologizes to Maxim, and allows to register an LGBT group for its employees!

It’s time for the other airlines in the Sky Team alliance to stand up, and hold Aeroflot accountable for its extreme anti-gay actions.

It’s time to hold Aeroflot, Russia’s principal airline and a member of your global alliance, accountable for its extreme anti-gay actions. Just this past month, Aeroflot punished an employee who tried to organize a group for gay employees, by telling him that if he didn’t marry a woman, he would lose his job.

This type of behavior should be unacceptable for a member of the Sky Team alliance. As a regular customer of Sky Team group, I urge you to remove Aeroflot from this alliance, unless the airline apologizes for what it did to this employee, and allows the formation of a group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees.